Figure name or title

Figure name or title

The following principles are recommended:

  • Number figures consecutively within the document (eg Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3), or by section or chapter (eg Figure 2.1, Figure 2.2, Figure 4.1, Figure B5). Numbering by section is useful because changes in one section will not affect numbering in another section. This is especially important in long documents or those that have many figures. Alternatively, images could be named Plate 1, Plate 2 and so on, if there is a requirement to separate photographs from figures within the publication.
  • Place the title as its own paragraph below the photograph, not within the photograph. This convention should also be used for web-based publications.
  • Use a title that describes the content of the photograph:
Figure 3     Groundwater monitoring bores
  • Use minimal capitalisation (only capitalise the first letter of the first word of the title and proper nouns).
  • Use minimal punctuation to keep titles clean and uncluttered: follow figure numbers with a tab, not a colon, and do not place a full stop at the end. Using a tab also helps align the titles properly in an automatically generated contents list of figures.
  • Spell out abbreviations in full in the title, wherever possible. Put any necessary detail in explanatory notes. The title should not cover more than 2 lines (preferably 1 line).
  • For a series of photographs, give the same information in the same order.
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